Tyrus McGee did foul Kansas’ Ben
McLemore with just more than a second
to play Wednesday night.

“The ref just didn’t call it,” Iowa
State’s energizer guard said after
sixth-ranked Kansas’ super shooter
sent the Big12 Conference game into
overtime. “I got him on the bottom of
his hand. I should have smacked him in
the head.”

• A lot of talk in Iowa about whether ISU coach Fred Hoiberg should have told his team to foul up three with just over eight seconds left.

• Blogger C.J. Mooredoes a great job here of diagramming KU's "chop" play, which KU coach Bill Self runs at the end of close games when he needs a three. Moore shows why KU has so many options on the play, and even points out that Mario's Miracle in 2008 was probably the worst-executed chop play of the bunch.

I for one am so tired of the negative comments posted on this site. You should be excited that Coach Weis is 1) at the game and 2) fully immersed in it. He is proud to be here at OUR university and that gives me the confidence to know that our atheltic department is going in the right direction

It was his first year, with signs of GREAT improvement. We forced a Top 25 Texas Tech into overtime, we competed with TCU, we nearly beat Texas, we where leading Kansas State for alot of the first half (we just didn't do anything in the second). This team is improving... they look way better than Gill's Jayhawks.

Our team doesnt look like the #6 team in the country the last two games. Teams are exsposing what we use to do with ease (lobs, alley-oops, etc) heck they are even cutting off that three man weave we like to run for some reason. BMac is great in tranistion and when a play is set for him to get open, but I want to see him create when he is one on one with the ball and has to do it off the dribble more. What is bothering me is when we need a bucket most we dont feed it inside or drive, we settle for long off balance jumpers. When we are in a drought and the in the bonus why do we look for the three so much? This team needs to do a little better job of knowing the situation and how to work for the right shot, not just force it.

With that said; its early January, we have the best coach in the nation, EJ and Tharpe were driving to the lane and creating at times when we really needed them to, we may have just found our go-to-guy (even if he is a decoy for those last sec shots sometimes), and we are going to be really battle tested if we can get through this conference schedule.

The biggest concern during the past two games are the lazy and careless passing that has for some reason has resurfaced. In the Temple game is was mainly Elijah's poor cross court passes that lead to lay ups for Temple. In the ISU game everyone chipped in. Teams are starting to play the passing lanes more aggressively (a KU staple) and getting more steals than usual. Both games I truly thought KU was going to lose and against ISU the cyclones were the better team overall and a little luck at the Phog propelled KU to a victory. Before these last two games I thought KU was in the elite air but no longer. The bench which is down to 3 players is not producing enough positive plays other than Tharpe. This additude of KU and then 9 other teams in the Big XII is far from accurate. They will need to improve further to have a chance to win the second season.

I haven't seen the Temple game but I have it DVR. I did have the opportunity to watch the game from D&B this week (but no sound). I thought we were a little slow if you will but maybe that was just being flat. Give credit where credit is do. ISU coach is gunning for KU and he's trying every way possible to win that game. He spent a lot of time watching film to try and beat KU. He had a great game plan, let the ball come to Young and let him score all day, sag the lane and let Whitney shoot from ten feet. Every team in the conference knows you can't play man to man and win and with the exception of a couple of teams in the nation, you can't play zone. Some nights teams are hot and some nights they aren't...

His response is more than what I would expect to see out of our head football coach. The fist pump and the arms raised. It certainly looks like he's every bit as in the moment as the student section with all of their jumping and screaming.

He's made it no secret that he's a big fan of KU basketball. And it's great to see him enjoying it.

Hopefully next year he can elicit the same kind of frenzied excitement from the football crowd.

You can see his mouth open, audibly cheering at the shot with his arms in the air, then he high fives the guy next to him. I see absolutely no difference between him and the 16,000 other fans in attendance. If anyone else could be described as "going wild," then so could Coach Weis.

There's no real significance other than it's cool to see Coach Weis fully immerse himself into other areas of KU sports besides football. Charlie is a sports fan in general and has been seen at other sports besides basketball as well like baseball games and when he's in town, he likes to experience other sports at KU. It's just nice to have a football coach that supports all aspects of the school and not just what he's paid to do. It does make him a good ambassador for KU so I guess there's some significance there.

A pretty good job diagramming the Chop by CJ Miller. It's interesting that in the NC game there was no off-the-ball action and everyone was just watching Mario shoot it.

That game wasn't the first time that we'd used the Chop at the end of a 3 pt contest. I believe that we ran at least two other times previously that season or maybe the previous season, I think that one of them was against Texas in the Big 12 tourney and Chalmer's hit the shot. And another one where Chalmers missed the shot.

But I thought that the flare screen was always a part of it.

Either way, Memphis should have known to expect it in the NC game, and every opponent that ever has us down 2 or 3 points with under 10 on the clock is expecting it. I wonder how many times KU rehearses that play in practice. I am sure they run it to death to make sure that the execution is good should they need it.

I think Memphis did know. I've watched that play 100s of times and it seems like they were playing it. Anderson isn't even guarding Mario in the corner as Sherron crosses half court. He's already on the wing, waiting to play the handoff. Rose is hounding Sherron towards the middle of the floor, away from the wing where the action is supposed to take place. Anderson is looking to the middle at Darnell to see if he's coming to set the screen for Mario. They are playing the play as its supposed to happen.

You can tell that Calipari told them not to foul, because Rose backs off Sherron as Sherron gets to the 3pt line. And that's when Sherron stumbles. He loses the ball and Rose pursues him for a step. That step is huge because it takes Rose inside the 3pt line. As Sherron shovels to Mario, Rose turns quick, but that step has him about six feet away from Mario, instead of right on top of him. That six feet is huge because Rose was barely inches away on Mario's release. If Sherron doesn't stumble, Rose may not take that step, and if he doesn't, maybe Mario's look isn't as good.

Sometimes success (no stumble or clean look) and disaster (more difficult shot or stumble) are the same thing, just in a different order.

Calipari definitely told them to foul on that play. Many people sitting next to coach Cal heard him tell them to foul on that play. Also, when the play was being inbounded and ran up court, Cal was stomping his feet saying "foul foul foul". Doesn't mean he didn't know what play they were running, but he definitely told them to foul. They shoved Sherron to the ground but there was a no call.

I may be mistaken on whether or not the foul was ordered, but Rose puts his hands up and backs off Collins, making it seem that he was trying to avoid a foul rather than commit one. Watching the play makes you believe that Memphis wasn't trying to foul, which is where my assumption comes from. I probably should have said it that way before.

clevandjayhawker - You must have missed Ben's two late-game head-fake cross-over dribble moves that ended in open 3's.............. and you must have missed EJ's two late-game drives in the lane. The 0-10 shooting streak in the middle of the second half does fit your description though. ISU came in well prepared and didn't get rattled till overtime; hope we can come out as well in Aimes!

EJ for both the temple and isu games drove and scored/assisted early and especially late when we needed him most. I dont know if its lag form the surgery or the position switch but he has only shown flashes of what can be. Maybe we were spoiled too much from Tyshawn when he could drive to the whole at will, and did the WHOLE game. EJ has done some, but from 8 mins into the first half till 4 mins left in the 2nd I dont recall him penetrating much.

BMac- He is creating, but seems to be okay with the long jumper. If he is hot shooting that night the shot fake/head fake will work, just with his high flying ability, I want to see him flush it, not shoot an 18 footer from the top of the key (even though he was stroking those last night). I think teams are going to change how they guard him and he wont have as many open looks, he will be forced to create on his own more.

After watching it on replay (couldn't watch it live) my reaction was that he was fouled as well. That would make three non-calls on three point attempts in that game. Something that the Mayor coaches perhaps?

Also, I am here to eat crow. I gave up on ku with just under 4 to go. I do like to think that my pessimism helps will ku to victory at times, though. :)

I thought there was almost more contact on that last 3 than on the foul they called against ISU earlier in the game when either Releford or BMac (can't remember which) was shooting a 3. I was a little surprised they didn't whistle it, but thought maybe they were making up for the questionable earlier call.

Kim English is surprisingly intelligent and articulate for being a Tiger. I still hate him, and that's literally the first non-hateful thing I've ever seen him say about KU or Kansas as a state, but I will begrudgingly admit he's a smart guy.

It was him. Always fun to see who Coach Weis has sitting in that spot next to him. His wife has been there a few times, Charlie Jr. a few times. Even former Chiefs coach Romeo Crennel sat there one game last year.

There are plenty of options out of both. The weave can be more/less effective depending on personnel. With Tyshawn (or any other "drive-ready" guard), we'd get points out of it (if we didn't turn it over), even if the 'D' did call it out. If they "drop" it's a jumper, if they go under the screen, it's a basket cut. If they go over the top of the screen, it's drift down and get set to shoot the jumper. If the post defender tries to help high-side at all it's a dump-down, etc, etc, etc. Seems like we killed 'Zona in Vegas with it when the twins were here. 'Zona was giving us fits, then it seems like we ran it about 6 times in a row. I think Ty scored 2 or 3 times. Seems like Morningstar got at least one, and I think Reed did too. Maybe I'm thinking of a different game in Vegas though, but I remember seeing them run it multiple time in a row.

KU ran a version of Chop against OU in '88 in KC. Scooter Barry got a layup out of it at a crucial time because his man went under the screen. The bigs had their guys uplane, and Scooter's side was strong-side w/ one picker and it was all blown out due to bad defense on the screen. He went over the top, OU couldn't help, and he finished with a finger roll. I think they ran something like that to Milt Newton quite a few times back in the day. Once they started flying out to close on his jumper, he could blow by for a short jumper, a layup/dunk or a dish.

A 1:36 in the mizzoo OT game (from the linked rticle) KU ran a version of the chop out of a TO, but instead of TT coming out of the corner to take the ball to the top, he back cut for a nice dunk. Tho I noticed the play, Iprobably wouldn't have notice the set being run w/o the commentary.

Got to give Kim English for that Lombardi reference, and the allusion and the way that everyone knew what Lomabari's teams were going to do.

BMac is star on the rise, but I don't think he is a PP level yet. PP could do it all: passing, shooting, jumping out of the gym, scoring in the post or on the break. He was the best all-round player that I ever saw at KU, including Manning. Too bad Roy favored LaFrentz over him. The options should have been: Pierce, Pierce, Pierce, Raef, Pierce.

He favored Vaughn: too bad for everyone. Especially if we were in the half-court. Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, eat up the shot clock while more talented players watch, initiate "offense" or take a dumb shot. Boooooooo! OurSelf would never let Jaque play the way Jaque played for Coach 7.

Not sure that I agree that PP could jump out of the gym: he's 6'7", and skilled. I agree that BMac isn't quite what PP was. Then again PP wasn't what BMac is that early in his career. BMac is still raw, PP came here pretty polished and got better. As far as being better than Manning, I'm not sure. PP was playing with a bunch of very talented guys. Some guys that were talented were playing with D. Manning. I saw them both do some incredible things: that much I DO know.

As the old joke goes:
Q: Who's the only person that could keep Pierce under 30 in college?
A: Roy Williams